


For Now My Thought Wanders; The World Hastens On

by blasted_heath



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Recovery, Returning Home, Roommates, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-04 19:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blasted_heath/pseuds/blasted_heath
Summary: It was said that a sailor made a poor amphibian, quite out of his element when forced ashore. Francis had accepted it, had understood that one day he must contend with it. But he had never quite recognized the truth of it as he did now.





	For Now My Thought Wanders; The World Hastens On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 1849, Captains Crozier and Fitzjames take up residence together, and Francis finds it difficult to settle back into the life that he had planned for himself four years earlier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I completely bastardized the ancient Anglo-Saxon poem "The Seafarer" for the title. The poem is narrated by a sailor who has often traveled in the frozen north, and returns to find that no one can understand what his travels were like, or what he has endured. I chose an [early Victorian translation](https://books.google.com/books?id=LTsJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA306&dq=the+seafarer&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjr3rXw-O7fAhVkneAKHfWdDqA4ChDoAQgzMAI#v=onepage&q=the%20seafarer&f=false), which I imagine would have appealed to my captains. Angsty quotes from the poem in the end notes! 
> 
> Have you ever . . . accidentally written a fic? This was supposed to be a several-paragraph intro to something shorter, but turned into an almost 4000-word first chapter because Francis had a lot of thoughts, and James likes to talk. So . . . the original, much sillier fic, will now be chapter two!

A naval life, as Sophia had often reminded him, was never one of permanence. Decades spent in conveyance between one port or another left no room for attaching oneself to a place, let alone for _settling_. It was a mercurial existence, and in Francis’s experience no home ever felt anything more than an afterthought, as inconsequential as the eight unused drawers in a captain’s dresser of ten. 

It was said that a sailor made a poor amphibian, quite out of his element when forced ashore. Francis had accepted it, had understood that one day he must contend with it. But he had never quite recognized the truth of it as he did now. 

\---

Before their return, he had been sure that all that constituted home would be the presence of British soil, which he would gladly fall upon and kiss the ground like the returning exile he was. _What was it Cæsar said, when he set foot on that beach?_ he had asked James one evening on _Enterprise_ , trying to coax a smile from him during his increasingly-irritable state of convalescence. _'I now take hold of the land of England'? You know they say that in fact he had lost his footing, and only said that to account for landing palms-down in the sand. Perhaps I should do the same at Stromness, if it would please you._ James had winced to laugh, then, but he had swatted at Francis’s hand, and reminded him quite adamantly that all theatrics and the recounting of dubious anecdotes were _his_ domain. 

_I do suspect it would take more than the land itself to make you happy, Francis_ , James had continued, voice lowered. He reached out again, and lay his hand atop Francis’s, gently this time. _Forgive me_. His voice still grated to speak at any length. _I would not impose if you already have some arrangement with the Rosses. But I find that I shall need someone with whom to share rooms, when we return._ He flashed the barest hint of a smile. _Half-pay and all that. If you would be amenable._

\---

Francis had shared lodgings before. Had done so many times, in fact, with fellow officers as a younger man between postings. To do so now with James was far from disagreeable, as unlikely as it seemed that the quiet polar veteran should share even the same sphere as the famously ebullient hero of Euphrates. The two captains moved as easily in each other’s company as if they had lived a lifetime together—and perhaps they had, Francis considered sometimes when in a philosophical mood, in their own way. To spend one’s years in the discovery service was to live many lives by nature, and among all the chronicles of Francis’s experience, the record of the past four years could only stand as a separate volume. To be present as James recovered, to hear his ever-stronger laugh in the evenings, and to thus be reminded that there were men for whom that four-year narrative did not run out, was a surreal existence. All things considered, it was the only life that seemed to fit.

For James it was perhaps a convenience, and it was momentary: he would return to sea, of course, as he always did. The navy was the only life he had ever aspired to, and not even the most harrowing clash with his own mortality could steer him from the course he had thus pursued with such determination. Francis knew better than to argue. 

But concerning his own intentions—well, he laughed to himself, he must truly be growing old. Old and, heaven forbid, sentimental. 

\---

Before the expedition sailed, he had made it intimately clear that this would be his final venture. That he would go to sea once more, be knighted for it, and live out the rest of his days as a gentleman on land. It had been Sophia, at the time, whom he had thought to please with such a vision of his future. He had thought only of proving himself worthy of her, then. He had promised that when he returned, he would ask for Sophia’s hand one more time, convinced that whatever the expedition did or did not discover, its achievements would finally earn him the title that Sophia so desired in a husband. 

Perhaps it was the ice that changed him. Four years in the Arctic would change any man—had changed any man, he recalled, thinking of James Ross—even in less tragic circumstances. Perhaps it was simply age, or he knew not what else. But he could not express the feelings he experienced when he returned to find Sophia still unmarried. He had not thought himself so irresolute. He only knew they were not the feelings with which he had departed.

He had called on her of course, as he had promised, as an old friend and as one who had been close to her uncle. And finally he had asked her, as a matter of honour, but Francis met Miss Cracroft’s third and final rejection with a contentment that bordered strangely on relief. 

\---

He must not have _lied_ all those years ago, exactly, he told himself as he wandered home that evening, walking a roundabout path and watching the lamps on the last of the steamers that plied their way down the river. He had been sincere when he told Sophia that he did not mourn life on land, that there was nowhere in the world he would rather be than at her side in London. Had he not told James essentially the same thing, when he said that all he needed to ease his heart was to set foot in Britain again? He had told one that he required marriage and retirement, and the other that he merely required a place to call home, but in the end, when marriage was removed from the equation, had his thoughts not been the same in both cases? 

To live the rest of his life a bachelor had been the farthest thing from Francis’s plans, the day that Franklin’s expedition sailed—as much as he would bitterly have told anyone who asked at the time, over a glass of whiskey no doubt, that it was the most likely outcome. Now that it lay before him as reality, it was the only life he could imagine pursuing. It was a secluded life, to be sure, at his age, but peace and seclusion had their temptations. 

It was not for men like him, in middle-age yet still in good health, to simply leave the service with no excuse. It was not done, not at least without money, prospects, or at least a title like James Ross had. But he longed for it—Christ, he _ached_ for retirement, for security, for stability, the only common factors in any future he had ever imagined for himself. He had longed for it when he had dreamed of following Ross into a settled life of marriage, and somehow he longed for it even more fiercely now, when the only likely companion of his future was his former second-in-command.

It hit him like a blow to the chest, and tightened like a fist the longer he considered it. Somehow, he had stumbled, battered but alive, back to England to find everything he desired neatly arranged within the walls of a rented townhouse. The rooms were comfortable, and warm, and away from the rush of the city, and with James he was never asked to exaggerate himself, or prove himself worthy in any role other than his own. He would exist there, happily, for the remainder of his days, were their arrangement not a temporary one. The day still lay far into the future, but James would leave, eventually, to reclaim the career, and Lord knew the glory, that he deserved, and then Francis would be set adrift once again. The thread of that unlikely life, the narrative of the past four years that for him had not yet concluded, would unravel in an instant.

\---

Some part of his thoughts must have been evident on his face, because James’s expression went from idle to worried the moment he walked through the door. James seemed to have been equally absorbed in his own thoughts, seated on a sofa with no apparent occupation other than an empty glass, which he was twirling under one finger on a table to the side. The spinning object clattered to a halt, and his eyes darted awkwardly from Francis’s face, to the floor, and back. 

Francis felt immediately exhausted. Unable to pull an appropriately neutral comment from the muddle of his thoughts, he wandered to stand by the window and stared out in silence, hands folded behind his back. 

“So,” James began at length, tentatively from his position on the sofa. Though he had regained most of his strength in the past months, his voice still cracked on the single word, and he coughed irritably. “Are you—to be a married man, then?” The phrase came out blank, as the words of one who had rehearsed the variants of a line over and again, and yet still had not settled on one that would serve. 

Francis shook his head in the smallest degree, and glanced over his shoulder. “You know well that I am not, James.”

“Ah.” His voice was still without tone, and Francis looked back to the window.

“I’m glad of it, I think. It never would have suited. For neither her nor myself.”

“Ah.” 

Francis did not know what he expected James to say, but his muteness, in that it revealed nothing, was distressing. 

“Do suppose it means you’re condemned to my company a while longer, though,” he added.

Francis turned around, expecting that James would at least attempt a laugh at this observation. Instead he was silent and wide-eyed, a frown deepening the lines on his face. James looked older than he ought to, when he worried as he did—and his hair, cut short during his recovery, glinted quite clearly gray in the lamplight. In a frivolous thought, Francis imagined taking James in his arms, and telling him that he was never again to worry on his account. He thought of trailing his fingers over every line and paled hair that the ice had laid upon him, as if he could somehow undo it all. But it had been long, now, since he had felt any more than the whisper of James’s hand against his own, the brush of fingertips in helping him on with his coat in the morning, or in passing in the hallway at night. 

James coughed again, clearly conscious of being watched. Francis shook his head, and turned away, before the flush rising behind his ears could spread any further.

\---

“Francis.”

James’s voice, having grown predictably agitated, still sounded from behind him. 

Francis had considered leaving the room altogether, but instead had only managed to pace the length of it, and back, to take up his post at the window again and stare interminably out at the empty garden. 

“For God’s sake, just come away from there. I have been cooped up here all day. Come tell me about _something_. Anything.”

Francis snorted. “There is nothing to tell, James.”

“Well then, just—Quite right,” he sighed. “I do apologise. Just come sit, will you?” 

Though uncertain whether he was prepared to face the onslaught of James’s undue concern, he could not deny company to the man when he clearly dealt so poorly with isolation. James, in his prime, had been possessed of a spirit as indomitable as his famous rockets, and almost certainly as incendiary. Francis had no doubt that the same fire still hid somewhere beneath his slight exterior, and was like to erupt in premature recklessness from sheer boredom, if left to his own devices. He wandered over with what must have been apparent resignation, and stood before James like a man accused.

“Well, then.” James had apparently decided that he had reached the limits of his success in bending Francis to his will. He crossed his legs and lay an arm across the back of the sofa, arranging his features into a deliberately self-assured expression. “Perhaps I can provide you with better news. Ross was here for you, earlier. Left a message for you, as I understand.” He gestured to the side table with a flick of his fingers, and cocked his head, expectant.

“Oh.” Francis was hardly in the mood for official correspondence, even when delivered by a friend. “What did he say?”

James said nothing, only stared with that damnably unreadable expression.

“Don’t toy with me James, what did he—“

“Oh, just read the letter, Francis!” For a moment, that expectedly reckless, almost mischievous spark glinted in James’s eyes, before he blinked it away. 

“Oh alright,” he growled, and spread both hands in surrender. There it was. James was not to be blamed for attempting to diffuse an awkward situation, however theatrically he chose to do it. “Alright. Be secretive, then, if you must.”

He reached across to take the letter in question, scowling as he did so. It could hardly be called more than a note, as brief as it was. He had thought to resume his pacing about the room as he read it, but halted on the spot, and nearly dropped it several seconds later. 

“I—,” Francis began, stuttering. “James—how? How does he know this for certain?”

James, despite this outburst, was still absurdly straight-faced. “Know what, Francis? You’ll have to ask him, I suppose.”

“He says that he heard—Good God. That I am to be—Hell, James, did you know about this the whole time?”

James only raised an unsurprised eyebrow. “I did tell you, didn’t I?” 

“What?”

“I told you years ago that I believed you would be knighted on our return. You only needed wait.”

“You— _James!_ ” Francis gaped at him, startled that he could speak so matter-of-factly, and now worried that he may have managed to disappoint him in some way. “Are you—? Please tell me you are not looking at me like that because you think I’ll feel excused to continue making a fool of myself over Sophia. Even I am not that pigheaded.” He paused and forced back an exasperated groan. “James, I _swear_ to you—she gave me her answer and I was glad of it, whatever—“

But James maintained his unassailable facade for only a moment longer. Startling Francis from his frantic monologue, a broad smile broke across his face, and he laughed heartily. “Ah, I apologize, Francis,” he finally exclaimed, his eyes narrowed in amusement and looking more than usually affectionate. “I just had to see your face, as you worked it out. I am delighted for you, dear man.” He thrust his hand in Francis’s direction. “And of course I believe you. Here, help me up, would you? Damned leg’s gone numb from sitting here all evening.”

Bewildered, Francis barely registered the pressure of James’s hand in his. He was still looking skeptically at the paper he held, as if he expected it to speak aloud, and so was ill-prepared to support the weight of James’s arms falling suddenly and heavily around his neck. 

Francis staggered backward, the back of his knee colliding with a nearby armchair. He gasped audibly, but caught his balance with an arm flung out behind him, and with an instinct that had followed him out of the ice, he reached out a hand against James’s side to steady him. 

“Christ, James!” Francis slumped against the side of the chair with James’s arms still clinging about his shoulders. “I didn’t realise—Are you—?”

“Oh.” James laughed again, seemingly joyful at his display of poor coordination. “Quite well. You, however,”—he adjusted the placement of his hands against Francis’s arms, and tilted his head in inquiry—“seem unusually distraught. Truly, I should have thought you capable of distinguishing between an accidental collision and an entirely purposeful embrace . . .” 

Francis’s hand was still pressed into the hollow above James’s hip. The last time he could recall placing it there, half a world away, he had felt his fingers slip between the lines of his ribs, and had been certain that his hand was the only force by which James was remaining upright. It required no physical contact, now, to confirm how well James looked by contrast; it had become evident of late in the fit of his newly-tailored clothing, and in the straight-backed confidence with which he walked, and in the gold in his eyes that shone even in a darkened room. Yet in an unthinking haze, Francis’s thumb still moved in a repeating arc where it lay against James’s side, as if only to be sure.

“It’s only—You said that your—” His hand stilled, and in sudden recognition of the gesture’s undue intimacy he moved to pull it away. 

“It’s not so bad as that.” James waved the notion aside, and swiftly reached for the hand that Francis had attempted to reclaim. “Don’t, Francis,” he added in lower voice.

“I ought to tell you to not worry so, about me, anymore” he continued, turning the hand over in his own, and carefully lacing their fingers together. “I am not so frail now as you remember, as you no doubt have discovered.” 

“No doubt,” Francis muttered, trying desperately not to think of how warm and solid James had felt when he had reached for him. He dug the fingers of his other hand into the upholstery behind his back. “But you will say it is in my nature to worry, of course.” 

“It is,” James agreed with a nod. “And since your concern is precisely what men have loved you for, I suppose I would be amiss to tell you to stop. Least of all now, that those hesitant fools in government have finally seen fit to recognise you for it as you have long deserved.” He smiled again, in that characteristically mischievous way of his, and, beaming, raised their joined hands to his lips. “Am I to be _condemned_ to your concern, then, as well as your company, for the rest of my days?” he asked, and pressed a kiss to the back of Francis’s hand. 

“Oh,” Francis breathed, fumbling for a response, wishing as he often did that he was as effortlessly witty or charming as the man before him. Words were vexingly difficult things, however, since James managed to be charming even while crowding him against a common armchair. “Well, I—I daresay the rest of _your_ days is quite some time. But if you wish it, then I—Ah.” 

“ _Ah_ , indeed, Francis.” Emboldened, James stepped closer, and swept his hand upward from Francis’s shoulder to lay behind his neck, his thumb brushing over the close-cropped hair behind his ear. “And while I am asking, I had thought—if you truly no longer wish for marriage, and now that you will not be wanting for status—well, it was rather clear that you have been thinking to retire for some time. And now—” 

“Hm. Have I been so obvious?” 

“Unbearably.” He leaned forward and brushed his lips past Francis’s ear as he spoke. “I thought you might come positively undone trying not to speak of it.” 

“ _James!_ ” Francis sighed, as James’s kiss dragged down his cheek and narrowly glanced past his mouth. “Must you insist on tormenting me in every way possible tonight?”

“Hush. I think you will forgive me for having missed you.” 

“I have been here the whole time!” 

“Hm. You know what I mean. And I did understand, but—anyway, if you will allow me to finish what I was saying.” He pulled back, and straightened to look Francis in the eye. “If you are to retire you shall need somewhere to stay, permanently, no? And I should like to have a place to come home to, between appointments. So would you consider—perhaps—extending our arrangement here? Indefinitely, even?”

Francis had not thought he had any capacity for further surprise, but he gaped again at the suggestion. Even if he intended to return to sea, which was by nature unpredictable, the concept of James planning any part of his future in advance was almost unprecedented. 

“Here, James? Permanently? You have only ever based yourself out of whatever port you landed in, like the rest of us. This is what you want, now?”

“Well, that depends on what you mean by _this_ , Francis, but again I think you know full well what I mean. Go where you will, but only tell me where it is, so I know where to forward my share of the cost. For God’s sake,” he appeared to attempt a pleading tone, but only came off amused, “you wouldn’t send me back to living in some Portsmouth inn, would you?” 

For the first time that evening, Francis laughed. The whole absurd progression of the day’s events came into focus at once—Sophia, James, Ross’s letter, and James again—and the effort to piece it all together washed over him with the force of hysteria. “Oh, Lord, James!” he cried, grabbing the back of the chair for support. 

“Good Lord. James—oh, Jesus Christ.” He sunk down on the chair’s arm, laugher turning to tears in his eyes until he struggled to see even the man standing over him. “Francis Crozier, preferable to a Portsmouth inn. What a glamourous title. If that’s your new name for me, James, I swear I’ll have your head.” 

The blurry figure he addressed leaned sideways where Francis had formerly stood, and presumably was glowering down at him. “That would be _Sir_ Francis, preferable-to-an-inn Crozier, I believe,” he stated, quietly. 

A higher-pitched yowl than he had ever even conceived of producing escaped Francis’s throat, and he swatted blindly at James’s arm. In the end he found he was clinging to James's elbow for support. “Don’t you ever—don’t ever call me that again.” He choked on another involuntary yelp. “Not even the first part.” 

“Oh, no?” James’s voice was almost inaudibly low, and his hand had found its way back to combing through Francis's hair. 

“No. Please. I'll stand no ceremony from you.” He turned his head to kiss James’s wrist, and reached both arms up and around his waist. “Just—just come here. I believe you still have to remind me of the differences between an accidental embrace and a purposeful one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This is against my normal Victorian research standards, but I can't find the original reference for Caesar saying "I now take hold of the land of England." But it just sounds like the most Victorian story ever, so I'm hoping that it is appropriate for the 1840s. 
> 
> 2\. I don't know why James Ross knows about the knighthood situation before Francis does, but, *handwave*, _plot device_. I imagine his note says something like:
> 
> _Old Man,_
> 
>   _I hear you are soon to join us among the ranks of the Arctic's Most Exalted Madmen. You have, of course, long been deserving of both being exalted and deemed mad. Congratulations, dear Francis. Ann sends her joy as well, I am sure, as soon as I am allowed to tell her._  
> 
> _James R._
> 
> _P.S. You have probably heard all of this from James F., by the time you read this. Do be kind to him—I swear the news did more for his recovery than any amount of sitting at home. The fellow is positively enamoured with you, I hope you are aware._
> 
> (Francis did not get so far as reading the postscript. He will laugh at it tomorrow). 
> 
> 3\. Excerpts from "The Seafarer," translation of 1842 (with seabird names filled in from a [modern translation](https://anglosaxonpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-seafarer/) because apparently the Victorian editor had weird ideas of northern birds):
> 
> I of myself can a true tale relate,  
> My fortunes recount, how I, in days of toil,  
> A time of hardship oft suffer'd . . .  
> Prov'd in the ship strange mishaps many . . . 
> 
> That the man knows not  
> To who on land all falls out most joyfully,  
> How I miserable and sad, on the ice-cold sea  
> A winter pass'd with exile traces . . .
> 
> Hung o'er with icicles, the hail in showers flew;  
> Where I heard nought save the sea roaring,  
> the ice cold wave. At times the swan's song  
> I made to me for pastime, the [gannet]'s cry,  
> And the [curlew]'s note; for men's laughter . . .  
> Storms there the stone-cliffs beat; there them the [tern] answer'd,  
> Icy of wings . . . 
> 
> Frost bound the land, hail fell on the earth,  
> Coldest of grains; therefore it oppresses now  
> My heart's thoughts, that I the deep streams,  
> The salt wave's sport, myself shall prove . . . 
> 
> For there is not so elate of mind, any man on earth,  
> Nor in youth so ardent, nor in his deeds so estimable  
> Nor to him his Lord so benignant, that he never on his sea-voyage fear entertains . . . 
> 
> Nor of aught else thinks, save of the rolling of the waves;  
> But ever weariness has he who on the deep ventures.  
> The groves increase with flowers, towns appear fair,  
> The plains seem beautiful, the world hastens on:  
> All these admonish the prompt of the mind  
> To go on journey; those who so think  
> On the flood-ways, far to depart.  
> So also the cuckoo exhorts, with mournful voice,  
> The summer's warden sings, sorrow announces  
> Bitter in its heart. The man knows it not,  
> The favour'd mortal, what some endure,  
> Who their exile traces furthest set;  
> For now my thought wanders o'er my breast's recess;  
> My spirit with the sea-flood,  
> Over the whale's home, wanders wide,  
> Earth's regions come again to me.
> 
> 4\. Did I make a "Wings of a Gull" reference again? Yes I did! I can't help James calling Francis by stupid middle names. I'm not sure this is actually in Wings continuity, but it could be. Nothing in Wings so far precludes them from going through a post-rescue awkwardly distant phase.


End file.
